Chris Van Vliet recently interviewed former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Damiain Priest for the “INSIGHT” podcast/YouTube channel. Here are some more highlights from the interview.
On the night he won the World Heavyweight Championship:
“If I’m being honest, it was emotional. I partied with my friends and family afterwards. We had a celebration. It was a great time, but then when I got back to my room, it was kind of one of those things where I was like, ‘What is this? How is this happening’, and yet, just holding the title in my hand, looking at it, and it was like one of those things, like, my entire life flashed, everything I had to go through to get to that point. It was one of those realizations that I thought I had regrets, I thought I wished I could do things differently, and then it was one of those things where it was like no, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be and this is the only way it would have happened.”
On almost giving up trying to get into WWE:
“I gave up on the idea of working for WWE. I tried multiple times to get in and in 2017 when I got an email saying ‘Nothing for you here’, I gave up and I was just focused on let me just live a happy life and figure it out. Then they called me, which is crazy how that worked. When I gave up, that’s when they wanted me. It wasn’t like I gave up the dream of wrestling. I was still wrestling. I was like, I guess I’ll just stay in Ring of Honor. I get to wrestle and that’s what I wanted to do anyway and it’s cool. It was small at the time, but it was still a television program. So I was like, Hey, I’m on TV. I’m doing what I wanted to do when I was a kid. It’s okay. Then here we are in the WWE.”
“Even in WWE, there were many times I looked around and saw everybody and how some of them are progressing faster than others. Although it happened fast for me, there were still times that I wasn’t sure if it was going to be like that. Maybe it’s cool that I made it, but this is it. It was one of those things like I don’t know if I belong. I don’t know what the future is going to be, and not that I gave up, but that I did doubt and I was like, I don’t think this is going to happen. I never thought I was gonna be world champ.”
On who he looked up to growing up as a wrestling fan:
“There’s a lot, but the main one was The Undertaker. I’ve never been shy about that one. That was my idol watching him. It wasn’t even so much the wrestling. It was just the aura, the presentation, everything. I remember how I felt and then that’s when I knew I needed to make people feel this way. Because I was big into comics, I wanted to be a comic book superhero or supervillain where people are emotionally invested in me. Even as a little kid I knew that. Maybe I couldn’t articulate it that way, but I knew that.”
“Then obviously I saw Razor Ramon, who I legit thought was a Latino. As a little kid, you don’t know the difference. I’m sure my dad knew this guy had a fake accent, but I didn’t know. I sort of was like, yo, he’s one of us. Then as you get older, you learn of other wrestlers. Sting was another one. I loved Sting. Still do. Just the character, especially when it became The Crow. I thought it was the coolest thing. Then the Attitude Era obviously happened and I was in high school, so Austin and Rock were my favorites. Obviously, Taker was always there, then DX. I was a Bret fan but then the NWO took over and then that was it for me, you know, NWO all the way. I would watch WCW just for the NWO and some of the Cruiserweights and then I would switch back.”
On wrestling Bad Bunny in Puerto Rico:
“What a lot of people don’t know is that there was back and forth and it almost didn’t happen in Puerto Rico. Plain and simple, I don’t think we would have done the match if it wasn’t in Puerto Rico. We were only going to do the match if it was in Puerto Rico. So when they announced Backlash in Puerto Rico, I was like, Okay, this is real. This is happening. The island is getting a little shout-out. We get to represent. For me, it was always, of course, I’m a very proud Puerto Rican, but it was just representing the Latin community, all Hispanics. That to me was opening the doors for a lot of stuff. I’m not saying that Puerto Rico did, but look at how many PLEs we’re doing outside the immediate country. I feel like the crowd reaction there got the company excited for, man, let’s see what else they can do. So we were excited and thrilled for that representation. Obviously, I was nervous that the idea of this has got to be really good. It’s me versus Bad Bunny one on one in a high-profile match. This isn’t just a typical celebrity match where they do two or three moves and it’s hi and bye. We’re gonna go 20-plus minutes, have to get everybody emotionally invested into this and it’s more than just people clapping hands for a celebrity. People need to feel sympathy, excitement, fear, you know, all of it. That’s what you want. So there were nerves in that sense. I knew that the work was going to be put in on Bunny’s side, like I did not worry about him not being ready, but you never know how things are going to play out.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
